The Winners for the Queens Wharf Competition in Auckland, New Zealand has been announced after thorough evaluation and assessment, five designs have been selected from the 237 original entries.
The Finalists
Design number 024 – Andrius Gedgaudas, Architect, Shanghai China.
Design number 046 – Den Aitken, Pete Griffith and Hamish Foote, Field Landscape Architecture, Auckland.
Design number 170 – David Gibbs and Aaron Sills, Construkt / SVB, Auckland.
Design number 195 – John Coop, Tasman Studio, Auckland.
Design number 216 – Simon Williams, Williams Architects Ltd, Auckland.
The five designs were selected by chief executives of the three sponsor organisations, the Ministry of Economic Development, Auckland Regional Council and Auckland City Council with expert advice from an advisory panel comprising Prof. John Hunt, Ian Athfield, Rebecca Skidmore, Jillian de Beer and Graeme McIndoe.
The final five designs were chosen for their ability to strike the right balance between meeting the need for a great space for the public to enjoy, the ability to act as a major celebration venue during Rugby World Cup 2011 (and other future events), and the need for a world class cruise-ship terminal.
The 237 designs gave the selection team a chance to look at a very broad range of concepts from which five were chosen that have the best potential to be further developed in Stage 2. As such, they are really a starting point for the work that will take place over the next two weeks until the end of Stage 2 of the competition, on 23 October.
In Stage 2, the finalists will develop their designs further, taking into account public feedback from over 2000 forms received and the 13 specific factors (pdf) identified by the advisory panel as critical to achieving the objectives of the development.
Design number 024 – Andrius Gedgaudas, Architect, Shanghai China.
Design number 046 – Den Aitken, Pete Griffith and Hamish Foote, Field Landscape Architecture, Auckland.
Design number 170 – David Gibbs and Aaron Sills, Construkt / SVB, Auckland.
Design number 195 – John Coop, Tasman Studio, Auckland.
Design number 216 – Simon Williams, Williams Architects Ltd, Auckland.
The 2009 Open Architecture Challenge: Classroom invited the global design and construction community to collaborate with primary and secondary school teachers and students to create smarter, safer, and more sustainable learning environments.
The Teton Valley Community School (TVCS) is a non-profit independent school located in Victor, Idaho. At the base of the Teton Mountain range, Victor is 6,200 feet above sea level and is a quickly developing alpine area. The town’s eclectic mix of pioneer families and new residents from around the globe exemplify Victor’s unique history and diversity.
TVCS’s master plan is to eventually build five of the proposed classroom buildings. The design allows for flexibility in their spacing and construction. The classroom buildings can be either site built or prefabricated in two modules that can be shipped to the site. The design objectives were to create flexible spatial configurations, reduce the school’s ecological footprint, and create a strong connection to the outdoors in response to the mountain climate.
Excepting the vegetable garden areas, the landscaping will incorporate native, drought resistant vegetation to reduce required irrigation. Zen rock gardens will be created using stones removed from the building sites during excavation. Perviousness will be promoted on the site by the use of pavers with grass and sand infill for the parking and pathway areas. Play areas will utilize the natural site features like trees, rocks, and berms.
cityLAB (UCLA) announces finalists for “WPA 2.0: Working Public Architecture.” WPA 2.0 an open competition that seeks innovative, implementable proposals to place infrastructure at the heart of rebuilding our cities during this next era of metropolitan recovery. The finalists include an Urban Algae: Speculation and Optimization Mining Existing Infrastructure for Lost Efficiencies, Coupling Infrastructures: Water Economies/Ecologies, Border Wall as Infrastructure, 1,000,000,000 Global Water Refugees.
P1014 Urban Algae: Speculation and Optimization
Mining Existing Infrastructure for Lost Efficiencies
Proposal location: applicable nationwide to tollbooths, coal-fired power plants, automobile tunnels and other locations of CO2 production; main sample project is a Brooklyn to Manhattan pier/bridge armature
Primary issues: This proposal seeks to turn negative byproducts of auto use and coal-fired energy (CO2) into ecological, economic, and social opportunities. Three site types are targeted – toll booths, coal-fired power plants, and automobile tunnels. The team’s design for a pivoting, pier-like, armature between Red Hook, Brooklyn and the Battery in Lower Manhattan not only captures the CO2 from the underwater auto tunnel, encouraging photosynthesis and alternative fuel production using algae pontoons, but also creates new public spaces (swimming pools, boardwalks, and plazas) and new locations for ecological or agricultural development including controlled wetlands and fish habitats.
P1117 Coupling Infrastructures: Water Economies/Ecologies
Proposal location: case studies include Salton Sea, Mono Lake, and Owens Lake in California and Pyramid Lake in Nevada yet proposal is applicable to numerous locations, particularly in the southwest.
Primary issues: This proposal focuses on America’s impending water crisis, particularly in cities in the southwest where growth is high and water availability is limited, by rethinking water use, distribution, and storage. Using the Salton Sea as a model site, the proposal envisions “converting the Sea back to its recreational use while allowing multiple economic opportunities for the production of water, salt, and more efficient greenhouses.” Here “infrastructure [becomes] an extension of nature.” Island pods provide for salt harvesting, recreation, and new animal habitats.
P1145 Border Wall as Infrastructure Proposal location: US/Mexico border
Primary issues: “[T]here exists far more potential in a construction project that is estimated to cost up to $1,325.75 per linear foot.” Recognizing the high cost, limited effectiveness and unintended natural consequences of the new, multi-layered US/Mexico border wall (disruption of animal habitats, diversion of water runoff that has caused new flooding in nearby towns), this proposal names 30 alternatives (covering nearly the whole of the Mexican alphabet, literally from Aqueduct wall to Zen wall) that might better combat the energy crisis, risk of death from dehydration, disruption of animal habitat, loss of vegetation, negative labor relations, missing creative vision and lack of cross-cultural appreciation likely in the government sponsored version.
Ronald Rael, Oakland, CA; Virginia San Fratello, Oakland, CA; Emily Licht, Oakland, CA;
P1155 1,000,000,000 Global Water Refugees
Proposal location: Great Lakes Region
Primary issues: Combining the rust belts’ loss of population with its abundance of fresh water, this proposal outlines a strategy for redensification of under-utilized post-industrial landscapes (parts of Milwaukee, Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, and Cleveland) by relocating populations threatened by water scarcity.
Martin Felsen, Chicago, IL; Sarah Dunn, Chicago, IL; Lee Greenberg, Chicago, IL; Jeff Macias, Chicago, IL;
P1168 HYDRO-GENIC CITY, 2020
Proposal location: Los Angeles, with other possible urban applications
Primary Issues: Through the development of integrated, ecologically sensitive, and aesthetically compelling architecture, this proposal seeks to turn the often mechanistic infrastructural system of LA – in this case, the waterworks – into an interactive and sensory series of public nodes. As mist platforms/light rail stations, urban beaches, energy producing water treatment plants, solar-panel encased water towers, pools, and aquatic parking lots, these water-based landscapes become organizational moments for community building.
TEAM: Darina Zlateva and Takuma Ono
Darina Zlateva Los Angeles, CA; Takuma Ono, Beverly Hills, CA;
P2001 Local Code: Healing the Interstitial Landscape
Proposal location: San Francisco, with secondary applications, per the proposal, in New Orleans, Seattle, and New York City
Primary issues: Tapping into the Department of Public Works catalogue of San Francisco’s “unaccepted streets” (those no longer maintained by the city and hence neglected and often impassable), this proposal utilizes various computer models and statistical data to determine and propose new public, park-based uses for these interstitial spaces. Over 1600 of these sites are available, a selection of which are analyzed for the proposal in terms of elevation and topography, microclimate, soil type, hydrology, population density and demographics, economics, crime, and existing networks to determine the most parametrically appropriate transformation of use.
Nicholas de Monchaux, Berkley, CA; David Lung, Berkley, CA; Matt Smith, Berkley, CA; Sara Jensen, Berkley, CA; Thomas Pullman, Berkley, CA; Kimiko Ryokai, Berkley, CA; Benjamin Golder, Berkley, CA; Son Nguyen, Berkley, CA;
